This invention is in the field of swimming pools.
In constructing a popular form of swimming pool, an excavation is first made at the site, and an upstanding wall is erected to define the desired outline of the pool. The wall must be sufficiently self-sustaining to hold its shape and of the desired outline even before any backfilling occurs around the outer periphery of the excavation. It is also desirable to form the upstanding wall of as inexpensive material as possible, and it is customary to construct such walls of sheet metal or the like. However, in erecting the wall it is essential that it outline be accurately maintained and to insure such accurate outline, it has been customary to provide the plates of the wall with upper and lower flanges and in most cases and flanges to bolt the units together. Such units, however, are of a predetermined and fixed shape, which cannot be altered to construct pools of different outlines. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,518,704, 3,798,857, 4,109,324 and 4,124,907. The above patents all disclose swimming pools of the general type mentioned in which the wall units are provided with either upper and lower flanges or are pan-shaped having flanges all the way around. U.S. Pat. No. 3,518,704 also discloses the use of braces to support a deck extending outwardly from the upper edge of the pool.
The present invention provides means for forming a swimming pool of any desired shape from identical modular units, each comprising a sheet of metal having a single flange at one vertical edge to extend outwardly of the pool, thus providing vertical stiffening. The plates are thus bendable to any desired shape. To maintain the plates in their desired configuration until final completion of the pool, applicant provides a stiffening coping extending around the upper edge of the pool wall which coping not only provides a finished edge, but provides, by means of a steel or other rigid bar therein, stiffening to maintain straight sections of the pool wall truly straight, and curved sections in the desired curvature. The pool is also provided with an outwardly extending deck around the upper edge which is braced to the sidewalls of the pool by means of bracing secured to the sidewalls and particularly the rearwardly extending flanges. It is preferred that a pair of braces, vertically spaced, be provided at each flange, the upper ends of those braces being adapted to have a mold plate secured thereto to define the outer edge of a concrete deck to be poured later. The invention also contemplates the provision of bottom braces to hold the bottom edge of the upstanding wall in the desired accurately maintained shape during construction of the pool. Applicant also contemplates the provision of additional Z-shaped bars which may be attached to the modular plates intermediate the main flanges of the pool wall to further assist in stiffening the same and a novel means and method are contemplated for maintaining curved sections to the desired curvature, without influencing adjacent modules, until the pool has been rigidly secured in place in its excavation.